Tuesday, Sept. 7

Watch the Us Now documentary and take notes

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Wednesday, Sept. 8

Finish watching Us Now and write about the idea of Government 2.0

Thursday, Sept. 9

Participatory Culture Comes in Different Forms and Involves Different Skills

1. With a partner, match the four forms of participatory culture with their definitions.
2. Look back at your notes from Us Know, and determine which kind of participation you saw in each example from the documentary.
3. With your partner, draw 2 and choose 1 of the skills needed for participation in the new participatory culture. Come up with a physical gesture to express your term.
4. Soma in Motion activity (from Vocabulary Unplugged) - teach the class your term using your gesture.
5. Match the 11 skills with their definitions.
6. With your partner, discuss ways you already use these skills in your own digital life.

*The materials for this lesson are drawn from "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" by Henry Jenkins.

Friday, Sept. 10

Video Introduction to Participatory Culture

Watch "Members of the research team at Project New Media Literacies discuss the social skills and cultural competencies needed to fully engage with today's participatory culture. Featuring Henry Jenkins" (YouTube)


Watch Henry Jenkins TEDxNYED Talk about Participatory Culture



Write a collaborative statement about what it means to be part of the participatory culture of the 21st century
Each team of students is responsible for incorporating one of these skills identified by Jenkins:

• distributed cognition
• collective intelligence
• transmedia (navigation) (storytelling) aka multimodal media

Search Strategies

1. Do a google search for "define:yourterm"
2. If your term is a phrase, put it in "quotation marks"
3. Try adding some of the following to your query:

• "participatory culture"
• "architecture of participation"
• "new media literacies"
• "Henry Jenkins"
• etc.

4. When you click on one of the pages in your list of results, use control + F to search within that page

Monday, Sept. 13

Entry Ticket: Social responsibility in light of globalization and the new technology landscape

Web 2.0 means anyone with internet access can contribute content to the web.
What are the implications for you? as a consumer? as a producer? as a participant? as a contributor?

*Connection to the 4 C's of Participation in Online Communities

The Video Republic

A new theatre of public information has emerged, spread across the internet, television, and campaigns. This emerging Video Republic is an alternative realm of creation and exchange. Who inhabits, shapes and regulates the Video Republic and what is its future?


Video is changing young people into reporters, commentators, distributors, directors, spokesmen for their own lives, beliefs, and opinions
This is a new public realm, a virtual community, an expressive democracy . . . be a part of it.

Four Corners Activity

agree, disagree, strongly agree, strongly disagree
The video republic is growing . .

• But if it's democracy, do politicians have any business here?
• If it's free speech, should everyone be able to make a video?
• If it's public space, should private companies own it?
• "It's time to connect the energy in the video republic with the mainstream."

Exit Ticket: Social responsibility, technology, and global leadership

What is your social responsibility now and in the future?
How are technological innovations relevant to your future as a global leader?